1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a facsimile server device connected to a plurality of data processing devices via a LAN (Local Area Networks) or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
As communications and computer technology have developed, various forms of communication networks have been proposed. For example, there is known a communication network which integrates a client-server system connecting a plurality of clients and servers to a LAN with PSTN (Public Subscriber Telephone Network) and/or ISDN (Integrated Service Digital Network) and transmits information. In such a client-server system, the client may use a data processing device like a personal computer (PC) and the server may use a facsimile server device in order to perform facsimile communication from the data processing device of the client via the facsimile server device.
In the client-server system, facsimile data is generated at each of the data processing devices, and sent to the facsimile server device. The facsimile server device transmits the facsimile data to remote facsimile and facsimile server devices via PSTN or ISDN networks based on instructions from the data processing devices. Further, the facsimile server devices notifies the data processing devices when facsimile data is received from the remote facsimile and facsimile server devices via the PSTN or ISDN lines.
Since facsimile data is comprised of image data that may include both text and pictures, the quantity of data that must be stored can become very large, and thus a memory device with large storage capacity is required to store large facsimile data. For this reason, the facsimile server devices are provided with large-capacity storage devices like hard disk drives.
Incidentally, by appending TTI information (“Transmittal Terminal Identifier information”) including the addressee's name, the sender's name, the time of transmission, and the number of pages to be transmitted to the facsimile data, data management such as storage and confirmation of the transmitted facsimile data can be improved. For this reason, conventional stand-alone facsimile machines append TTI information to facsimile data when performing data transmission. These conventional facsimile devices connect one-to-one with remote facsimile devices during facsimile transmission via a PSTN telephone line or other communication network or line. Consequently, the transmitter and recipient are specified at the time facsimile data is transmitted, and therefore, appending TTI information to facsimile data is relatively easy.
When facsimile transmission is performed from a facsimile server device, however, some problems arise. The facsimile server device can be thought of as the “transmitting terminal”, but since in fact the facsimile server device transmits facsimile data from a plurality of data processing devices, the data processing devices can also be considered the “transmitting terminals”. One of these devices can be permanently designated the “transmitting terminal”, but from the perspectives of the data processing device user and the LAN manager, such a solution is still problematic.
Japanese Patent Application, Laid-Open Publication No. 3-162034 published Jul. 12, 1991 discloses a facsimile communication system including a facsimile server and a plurality of facsimile terminals connected to the facsimile server. Identification information about each of the facsimile terminal devices and the facsimile server is appended to facsimile data and transmitted to a designated remote device. Therefore, the remote device can identify the origin of the facsimile data, i.e., from which facsimile terminal and facsimile server the data is sent.